Pavers England invites franchisees for expansion

In an effort to drive its pan-India expansion plan smoothly, footwear major Pavers England Footprints Ltd, a JV between UK-based Pavers Foresight Smart Ventures and Forward Group, has announced its plan to partner with franchisees. As part of the plan, the company is ready to join hands with both single brand and multi brand outlets and eventually plans to invest around USD 10 million through 1000 retail outlets in India by 2010, according to a company press release.

Stuart Pavers, chairman, Pavers England Footprints Ltd, said “We initially entered the country with a concessionaire route but in our experience, the franchise model is more win-win and we will focus on the same to expand our presence. We have already established the brand in NCR and south, and through franchisees, we will now ramp up operations in west, and expand to central and eastern India.”

Utsav Seth, CEO, Pavers England Footprints elaborated, “In the case of the franchisees, the company will invest in front end training including retailing, visual merchandising and CRM in India to maintain the high standards set by the brand in the European markets.”

Currently, the brand is retailed through concessionaires which include Reliance Footprints, Loft, Central, Kobler, Chief 19 and WODZ across India. With this proposed initiative, the company plans flagship stores in cities including Pune, Nagpur, Kolkata, Indore, Lucknow, Kanpur, Cochin, Surat, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Ludhiana, besides expansion across major metros like Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, added the release.